The Tangent College
Upon attending church this Sunday I was greeted with more of the same old same old. Initially I had some hope for the guest speaker as he quoted from the book of Proverbs about wisdom, but it wasn’t long before the entire message turned into a series of encouraging platitudes with no direct relationship with reality. He said, “He (God) did it all for you”, meaning that from His creation to His death on a cross and resurrection, it was all done expressly “for you” because He loves you so much. This of course is typical evangelical pop Christian jargon meant to soothe the savage beast and tickle the ears of the marginally saved. It is a half truth which means it is not biblically accurate or true in reality. It is the sudsy social gospel that makes the soul sicker gradually year after year as it is spoon-fed to the sheep. It is like a Christian manufactured vaccine that must be continuously boosted week after week because it never really cures the problem but merely covers it, giving rise to new festering, with another soothing balm and a Band-Aid.
It seems like they are so shallow that they literally cannot think of anything else to talk about except the same old same old. Or else they dare not. The people never get it and most of them are visibly bored. And yet the people are all rather nice. But their lives are made difficult because their metaphysics is screwed up. And every week we have to hear how difficult life is. I don’t mean to be mean, but God did not do it all for you. Again, this is the us centered social gospel.
“And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 9:36)
Primarily, God created the world and died on a cross, becoming all in all, for Himself and for His glory. To the social gospel Christian this is viewed as self-centered, but God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are far above our thoughts and his goodness and holiness far far exceed our own and who are we to judge God. God is good. God is the definition of good. God does not do “the good” because that would place the good above God and goodness would become God. No, God IS good. God judges his own actions because he is the only one capable of judging Himself. For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. – 1 Corinthians 15:27-28
The speaker was a spokesman for a Bible college whose job is to produce and send out Christian leaders into Christian service. Since my early days of being a Christian I have always been dubious of seminaries – which we would call “semeteries” – and their evangelical counterparts, Bible colleges. For some reason, every Christian leader or modern apostle who develops a following feels the need towards the end of their life to start a Bible college. None of the original 12 apostles started Bible colleges and there is no mention of them in the Bible. It was not until religion took hold that religious colleges and seminaries were established in order to teach the dogmas of a particular Christian religion. I’m sorry but it was never meant to be this way.Bible colleges are the best representation of a Christian movement turning into a monument. Harvard was once a Bible college and has since turned into a Christian mausoleum.
The Jews had Pharisaical colleges in which the apostle Paul was highly schooled. He later called it all dung. – (Phil. 3:
Paul was not very polite or politically correct and this is one of those scriptures that doesn’t quite fit well in evangelical, or any other established religion.
Bible colleges exist not to give people a useful degree, in order to learn a discipline, establish themselves in the real world and thus influence the real world, but rather to simply churn out Christian leaders that work within the church, to be supported by the church. And thus, being supported by the church, they are beholden to the beliefs, whims and desires of the congregation, to maintain their livelihood and career, rather than to God Himself. They are like Levites, like a priesthood which we as Christians are not supposed to have because we are all priests. The very idea of the Roman Catholic priesthood is completely non-biblical and Jesus expressly told his followers not to call anyone on this earth “father”; and yet the Catholics call their priests “father” all the time. But I guess I’m not supposed to notice this.
Well, as often is the case, this is not what I had planned to write about. And yet of The Tangent College is in no way a Bible college in the aforementioned sense. It is simply a group of like-minded individuals, freethinkers, Bible readers, those who have been born from above and not born into a religion. There is no graduating from The Tangent College as there is no end to the tangents.
Unraveling the ball of yarn that is religion is a monumental task but I nip away at it each week in these emails. It goes far deeper than simply relationship over religion although this is certainly part of it.
There are hundreds of theistic religions and numerous atheistic religions. They are all religions. We are all people of faith because without faith there is no movement, no direction, and no life. Faith is the starting point. Faith is the verb. Faith is the spirit. Faith however is not religion, but the devil always wishes to combine these two in order to deceive his foolish atheistic followers.
A friend of mine recently sent me a video of a cute song by the outspoken atheist and musician Tim Minchin. He’s an amazing piano player, a purposefully freakish looking fellow, who claims to be an atheist because he sees no evidence for the existence of God. Of course he is a blind fool – not my words, the Bible’s, lest anyone take offense of my “unloving” language. The amazing thing is that all the evidence that he claims NOT to see is literally everything clearly evident around him, including himself and his music, that he has chosen not to see and purposefully to close his eyes and become blind while continuously saying “I don’t see”. This is why the Bible calls him a fool. He is the devil’s fool, of which he is either ignorant of, or delights in his status.
But the true cage that he has locked himself into is the same one, though to a lesser degree, that the Bible college graduates lock themselves into – the religious career. By becoming famous for being an atheist he can not now open his mind’s eyes and deny everything that he has built his career upon, lest his career would be devastated. The same is true for the religious Christian leader who, if he were to have a revelation from God, would lose his status in the Christian community. In other words, the Roman Catholic priest would have a very difficult time announcing to his congregation that they should no longer call him “father” because that is against Scripture or that he is no longer a priest who is necessary to be a mediator between man and God.
It occurred to me that this was precisely the thing that Jesus was referring to when he said to the rich young ruler who had done all the right things, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” -Matt. 19:21. I believe he was not so much talking about money as he was about status in his religious community – which usually translates to wealth. The man was confident in his religious beliefs and good standing, and saw Jesus as an ally to court, but then Jesus threw him a curveball of which he could not conceive and it crushed him.
It takes the biggest of men to humbly follow God and walk away from religion. It is like the Jew who accepts Christ and believes they are no longer a Jew because modern Judaism, like Ben Schapiro, have defined being a Jew as rejecting Christ. Little fast talking Benny boy has said that Christ was crucified by the Romans because he led a rebellion against the Romans. Of course this is completely historically inaccurate. It is the very lie that the Bible says the Jews maintained to this day. The rebellion against the Romans was actually what the Pharisees wanted of Jesus but he refused to give them – a sign from heaven. And it is also what Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ and an antichrist, imagined to be Christ’s mission. Fast talking Benny boy falls for all these lies but he still claims to be a good Jew. The true Jew is one who accepts the Messiah that the father sent. But how difficult would it be for Ben Schapiro to walk away and deny everything he has built his little media empire on. – So very difficult.
Ben Schapiro is a modern day Sadducee, denying the resurrection and denying all miracles in the Bible. He is not a true Jew but as Jesus said, he is of his father the devil. He is also a phony CONservative like Elon musk.
How hard it is for the Muslim to discover the truth about Jesus and walk away from the lie that is the religion of Islam. – So very difficult.
It is only by the grace of God which is the Freewill that is given to us to turn around and embrace the truth. But we must do it ourselves. God does not do it for us regardless of how much he loves us.